Provide Duke students access to online full-text articles through your Blackboard site in three steps:

1.  Find Stable or Persistent URLs

Some databases offer reliable, permanent links directly to their online content through stable or persistent URLs (also known as PURLs).  You CANNOT simply cut and paste the url from the web browser while you are looking at an article.  This is rarely a stable URL. 

What database is this article in?

• Search for the journal title using the e-journals finder.
• Click the Get It @ Duke Link to see the database(s) that can supply this article in full text online.
  

Does this database support stable URLs?

• Search for the database in the Articles and Databases finder. 
  
• In the list of results, click the "i" next to the database name.
  
• If the database allows permanent linking to citations or articles, detailed directions for creating these URLs will be there: scroll down to the heading "Stable URLs."

Databases with easy-to-find or to create stable URLs include: Academic and InfoTrac OneFile, America's Newspapers, JSTOR, any Proquest database.

 

Databases with more difficult to create stable URLs (usually requiring multiple steps) include: Academic Search Premier, Cambridge University Press, any Ebsco database.

Databases which do not support stable URLs at this time include Lexis Nexis.

Example of a stable URL: http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com/hww/jumpstart.jhtml?recid=0bc05f7a67b1790e22c948a92294d51db63288e6aa77a5175faafaca721f2d22faa1450beaa9d83d&fmt=C

2.  Make a Stable URL Accessible From Off Campus 

For off-campus access for Duke students who don't use the VPN, the link must be forced through EZProxy.  This will prompt the students to provide a NetID and password.

Cut and paste the following text onto the front of the stable URL: http://proxy.lib.duke.edu:2048/login?url=

Example of a stable url with EZProxy add-on: http://proxy.lib.duke.edu:2048/login?url=http://vnweb.hwwilsonweb.com/hww/jumpstart.jhtml?recid=0bc05f7a67b1790e22c948a92294d51db63288e6aa77a5175faafaca721f2d22faa1450beaa9d83d&fmt=C

3.  Create a Link in Blackboard 

We suggest adding links to articles in Course Documents.  We suggest you include the full citation as well as the link; that way, students can track down the article themselves if the link stops working.

How to link to an external URL in Course Documents (with screenshots). 

Duke's Blackboard help.  CIT staff can help faculty learn how to use Blackboard.

Alternately: Teach Students How to Find Full Text from a Citation

Offer your students directions on how to access the full-text article from the citation.  We recommend teaching them to look up the journal title in the e-journals finder or the catalog, and to follow the Get It @ Duke link from there.  Understanding Citations and How To Find Articles may be helpful. You may also want to remind them that they can Ask a librarian for help.

Advanced Linking: Create a Get it @ Duke Link

There are two ways to create Get it @ Duke links, which you can then provide to students via email or Blackboard. The easier way is through the Get it @ Duke menu, which appears anytime you click on the Get it @ Duke graphic. On the Get it @ Duke menu, click on "More Tools," and then choose "Save Citation and Link" to generate a stable URL. This URL will always lead back to a Get it @ Duke menu, which will list current, full-text options for the item in question.

Another option, if you are particularly tech-savvy, is to create Get it @ Duke links, available for most of the journals we have online, with the OpenURL Generator. Warning: this is not for the faint of heart.

• Choose the tab that fits your resource
• Fill in as much information as you can. To create the best URL try to fill in the ISSN or ISBN, date, article title, and author.
• Click "Submit"
• Copy the OpenURL that displays -- use this as the link to the article
• Proceed to the Get it @ Duke menu by clicking here, and test the items that display for the URL you just created. Test each of the options that display to make sure they all work (if they do not, follow the Ask A Librarian link to report problems)
• Add or delete information from the original form to fine tune your URL. Ask A Librarian for help with this process if you have any questions
• You may use the http://sfx.lib.duke.edu:9003/sfx_local/sfx.gif in your webpages or Blackboard courses.